Ella and Marilyn.With Black History month being February, I thought this would be a fitting blog for me to post about Marilyn. She made great big steps toward embracing diversity and would not tolerate any type of discrimination in her life. That's beauty to me. Enjoy these facts guys and dolls!

Fun Fact # 1: Her Favorite singer was Ella Fitzgerald! She admired her so much and Ella was her idol.

This also leads to Fact #2: Marilyn was a strong advocate for the Civil Rights Movement and the story was that she went to a club that was predominantly white and the owner of the club did not want a black performer to perform at his club. Back then in the fifties, this was hush hush issue and segregation was the norm. Marilyn said that she would only go in and stay if this African American performer would play. With that said the owner caved and allowed the performer to go on, needless to say Marilyn stayed and watched the performance and thoroughly enjoyed herself. This was just one example of Marilyn's advocacy for de-segregation and for creating a world in which we see people for who they are rather than what their skin-color is. She was a beautiful person inside and out and immulated a person with empathy and an acceptance of all.
::I'm not quite sure but I believe that the performer at that club was Sammy Davis Jr., either that or another person who would later become very famous. It might have been Sammy, but it's hard to believe that even Sammy Davis Jr. couldn't perform at this exclusively white club. I guess it could be true and happened a lot back then::

**Update, it was actually Miss Ella Fitzgerald herself that wasn't allowed to sing at this club and Marilyn said that if Ella was able to perform Marilyn would be there every night she performed. And she was! Right in the front row....Ella was ever so appreciative of that, saying that Marilyn was way ahead of her time!**

The Lovely Marilyn, with a lovely heart. Mua, a kiss to her for pushing boundaries during a time when it was being scrutinized ever so!
This just goes to show that you can push boundaries to prove to others that what you believe in does have validity. Like peace and love and acceptance. Especially with everything happening now, Marilyn is still relevant today. Really the message hasn't changed much, all we need is love and acceptance for others...awwww how sweet.

More on Marilyn's Civil Rights participation later to come!